“The Fall Guy” Review: Stunt Performers Get Their Due in Gosling-Blunt Action Comedy

​The Friendly Film Fan Breaks Down the Latest from director David Leitch.

Stunt work is – without question – some of the most underrated work in the movie business. Stunt performers are the true lynchpin of just about every action movie people have ever watched, and more often than not, a lot of non-action fare as well. They take hits, they fall down, they get back up to give a hit back, and they give their job everything they’ve got so the movie they’re in can work as well as it’s intended to. That’s the ultimate mission of The Fall Guy, a new action comedy starring (among others) Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt: to celebrate stunt workers as the unsung heroes of moviemaking, the ones who make it possible to actually make something larger than life. It’s a noble effort for what, in the end, is a fun, slightly zany comedy about the guys whom the industry would die without but who have not yet gotten their dues. There’s enough going for it that I would consider this a good movie; it’s just a shame it’s not a better one.
 
The story concerns our main character, Colt Severs (Ryan Gosling), who’s gone off the grid for quite some time after an apparent accident with a stunt rig which resulted in a back-breaking injury. Having heard that former flame Jodi (Emily Blunt) needs a new stuntman to head up the team on her directorial debut – and that the lead movie star on the project has gone missing – he suits up once again to discover if he may be able to save the production from imminent disaster, and hopefully, be able to rekindle what was once thought lost. The film also stars Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Teresa Palmer, and Stephanie Hsu.
 
The issues The Fall Guy experiences can essentially be attributed to this: David Leitch is just not a good enough director on his own. Sure, a lot of the scripts he works with have the right among of wit, action, and engagement to keep audience entertained, but rarely have I come out of a David Leitch film – pretty much all of which I’ve enjoyed – and made note of how good the direction of the movie was. (I even like Bullet Train.) Unfortunately, the same is true of this film. Essentially coasting off the strength of its two key elements, those being the stunts and performances, the direction of the film feels very flat, as if it doesn’t quite know what it’s meant to be doing with itself. As a result it feels as if the film is simply waiting for someone with a clear vision to steer it along, and no one ever really takes the wheel. This could be attributed to a few script issues as well; between the stuntman love story and the missing movie star story, the film never really establishes which is its A-plot and which is its B-plot, so the two are sort of fighting over screen space for longer than the climax of the film takes to finally wrap up. It’s a very wonky mashup of genres which features some great editing choices and other not-as-great ones, forcing the structure of the film to compromise both genres rather than elevating one or the other.
 
All that said, The Fall Guy does offer enough entertainment for summer audiences to sit back and relax to as an opening summer tentpole. The stunt work is genuinely great, and it’s nice to see a film with a mainstream reach and mass-audience appeal highlight stunts in such a major way. From car rolls to being set on fire to large falls to jumping boats, every action sequence is well-choreographed and exciting to watch, thanks in no small part to the talented stunt team this movie has. I’ve got little hope that the Academy will now do the right thing and add some form of a Stunts category to the Oscars before the next decade has wrapped up, but that’s better than no hope at all, and frankly, the possibility of that happening is closer than it’s ever been.
 
The performances also really sell a lot of what the script has to offer in the positive sense, particularly for Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, whose on-screen chemistry sizzles when they get to share scenes, as unfortunate as it is that they don’t get to share quite enough scenes together to make the romance work in this story. (The romance itself always seems on the edge of the frame, like a tantalizing bit we can’t commit to because the movie has to follow this other missing persons plot.) Gosling and Blunt have been on the road promoting the movie since the Oscars when they each showed up for their “rival” Best Picture contenders, and it’s clear that the film takes full advantage of each of their strengths – Gosling’s comic timing, Blunt’s action abilities and line-reading skills – in order to elevate what’s on the page. But I’d also like to give a shoutout to my man Winston Duke, whose work in the film nearly rivals that of its two main stars, especially in the one action sequence he gets to share with Gosling. He gets a lot more screen time than one might expect, and he makes the most of every moment.
 
As summer movie season openers go, we’ve certainly had better than The Fall Guy, but we’ve also had worse, and this film feels appropriately positioned as a movie star-driven action comedy with enough mainstream appeal that it’ll attract a decent-sized audience back to theaters. As unfortunate as it is that it needs to coast on the stunts and performances in order to keep its sub-par direction and scattered storytelling from overwhelming the two hours it has to get everything done, those performances and stunts are well worth the big-screen treatment, and in the end, it’s a fun enough movie that I would say without question it is worth seeing. At the very least, we could all do our part in supporting a pure celebration of the stunt community to get the Academy’s attention on their importance.
 
I’m giving “The Fall Guy” a 7.3/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan